You can now play a game on one computer and enjoy it on another

May 22, 2014 06:30 GMT  ·  By

Valve has just confirmed that its Steam In-Home Streaming feature is now available to all users of its digital distribution service, allowing them to play games on one PC in the household and enjoy them on another computer that's connected to the same network.

Steam continues to dominate the digital distribution market thanks to Valve's emphasis on quality, its regular sales, and the top-notch features offered to users, from the Big Picture Mode to the Family Sharing and much more.

Now, another great service has been added to the Steam suite, in the form of In-Home Streaming, which allows users to easily stream gameplay footage from one main computer to others located on the same network.

"In-Home Streaming, a new feature of Steam, is now released to all users. Players who have multiple computers at home can immediately take advantage of the new feature. When you log into Steam on two computers on the same network, they automatically connect, allowing you to remotely install, launch, and play games as though you were sitting at the remote PC," Valve said on the official website.

More specifically, the main gaming computer will actually play the title and, using in-home streaming, users can enjoy its footage and control it from another computer that's connected to the network. These can range from other gaming PCs to lower-end machines like laptops or home theater PCs, no matter the operating system, as Windows, Mac OS X, SteamOS, and Linux are all supported.

"When you play a game using In-Home Streaming, video and audio are sent through your home network from your high-end gaming PC to another device in your home. From here, your keyboard, mouse, and controller input is sent back to the remote computer."

The new In-Home Streaming is quite flexible, as game sessions can be started on a PC and picked up on another machine right where you left off. It should also help those who don't want to re-download a game on another computer, as once it's installed on the host PC, the other one doesn't need to transfer any files.

Bear in mind that some issues are still present, according to the Valve support article, like with host PCs that run Windows XP, which can't actually stream gameplay.

Updated video card drivers are also required to ensure fewer problems, and in some cases tweaks in the AMD Catalyst Control Center or the GeForce Control Panel are also needed.

Expect to see some more Steam features in the near future.